London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972
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Hints from the Health Department. Leaflet from the archive of the Society of Medical Officers of Health. Credit: Wellcome Collection, London
Lambeth 1945
[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Lambeth Borough]
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7
GENERAL PROVISIONS OF HEALTH SERVICES
IN THE AREA.
Nursing in the Home.
The number of visits paid to children under five years of age
was 2,924, and to persons over five years of age, 2,175. The
increase in salary of district nurses following the report of the
Rushcliffe Committee has been met in so far as the Borough Council
is concerned by an increase in the flat payment to 2s. 2d. per visit
to all cases. This rate is paid for each visit of a district nurse from
all the seven district nursing associations working in the area.
The cases nursed are all those including sufferers from Tuberculosis
requiring skilled nursing which in the opinion of the
Medical Officer of Health can properly be regarded as coming
within the scope of the Lambeth nursing (infectious disease) scheme
or the Lambeth maternity and child welfare scheme.
| Total individual cases dealt with | 15,601 | (15,650) |
| ,, sessions held | 2,486 | ( 2,552) |
| „ ante-natal cases | 3,422 | ( 3,059) |
| ,, post-natal cases | 678 | ( 718) |
| „ nursing mothers | 3,527 | ( 3,281) |
| „ infants under 1 | 4,588 | ( 4,630) |
| „ children 1-5 | 3,546 | ( 4,063) |
| Visits paid to A/N cases | 6,990 | ( 7,206) |
| „ „ P/N cases | 2,762 | ( 2,822) |
| ,, „ nursing mothers | 20,176 | (19,146) |
| ,, ,, infants under 1 | 18,882 | (19,232) |
| „ „ children 1-5 | 37,273 | (37,097) |
Welfare work increased steadily after V.E. Day, as more and
more families were reunited, and the housing conditions, depressing
enough for the reduced wartime population, rapidly worsened as
the population returned from evacuation. The children attending
the Welfare Centres are in better health than ever but the mothers
were facing the prospect of continued rationing and longer queues
with a forbearance and equanimity based upon the conviction
that things must improve soon. Tempers were already on edge,